9th Grade Class Experiments with Cress Exposed to Wi-Fi Attract International Attention

It's a recipe for a biology test so brilliant in it's simplicity and remarkable in it's findings, that it has attracted attention among acknowledged biologists and radiation experts around the world. Behind the experiment are five girls from class 9b in the Hjallerup School in North Jutland in Denmark and it all started when the girls found it difficult to concentrate in class. 

"We all think we had experienced having difficulty concentrating in school, if we had slept with the phone next to your head, and sometimes also experienced having difficulty sleeping', explains Lea Nielsen, who is one of the five aspiring researchers. 

But how could they show the effects of radiation from mobile phones and wi-fi transmitters, without expensive technical equipment?  The answer was karsefrø, or cress seeds to you and me.

The experiment was as simple as it is brilliant!  The girls took 12 plastic plates, onto which they put some tissue paper soaked in water, and then sprinkled 400 cress seeds on each plate.

Six trays of seeds were put into a room without radiation, and six trays were put into another room next to two wi-fi routers which broadcast the same type of radiation as an ordinary mobile phone. Both rooms were the same temperature and the seeds were given the same amount of water and sunlight over a twelve day period.

During the 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and took pictures of the progress of the cress in both rooms.  And the results were astonishing!

The cress seeds with no EMF influence grew normally.  However, the cress seeds next to the router did not grow, and some of them were even mutated or dead.

'It is truly frightening that there is so much influence, so we were even very marked by the result', says Lea Nielsen.

Reactions 

The experiment secured the girls a place in the finals in the competition "Young Scientists", but this was only the beginning. Renowned scientists from England, Holland and Sweden have since shown great interest in the girls' project and its startling results.

The renowned professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Olle Johansson, is one of the researchers the girls have impressed. He is now going to repeat the girls experiment with a Belgian research colleague, Professor Marie-Claire Cammaert at the Université libre de Bruxelles.  It is a trial that according to him, is absolutely brilliant: 'the girls within the scope of their knowledge and skills implemented and developed a very elegant test. The wealth of detail and accuracy is exemplary, choosing the right cress is very intelligent, he says.. 

He has also says the five girls have a bright future ahead of them, "I sincerely hope that they spend their future professional life in research, because I definitely think they have a natural aptitude for it. Personally, I would love to see these people in my team!"

No mobile by the bed 

The five girls from northern Jutland haven't yet decided their future careers and are still reeling from all the sudden attention.

"It has been such a constant sum of the stomach. I still can not understand it", says Lea Nielsen.

And Mathilde Nielsen says, "It's totally overwhelming and exciting. It's not something you just experience every day".

But there have also been other consequences of the remarkable cress trial, "none of us sleep with the phone next to the bed anymore. Either it is far away, or in another room. And the computer is always off", says Lea Nielsen.

Source: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/05/16/131324.htm